Shields are projections of force designed to stop in-coming damage. Each ship has shields in four aspects; Front, Rear, Left Broadside, and Right Broadside. The arcs defined by the shields are the same as defined for weapon arcs. Each level of shields provides protection to the damage types (EM, Thermal, and Kinetic). Shields also consume power. Shields will reduce the incoming damage slightly before it is applied to the shields. In each Bookkeeping Phase, the shields will rebalance themselves to an equal level. The player may opt to not rebalance the shields. If the shields are not rebalanced, power may be diverted from other shields to reinforce one shield aspect. No more than 25% of a shield’s Collapse value may be diverted to another shield. Shields will also regenerate themselves at this point.

How is this interpreted by readers? Especially the part about rebalancing.

Shouldn't this be "against the damage types"? And does this mean that all of these types are protected against by all shields, or that different levels of shield provide different types of protection (I assume the former).

For example, a type of laser does 4 EM damage, 6 Thermal and 0 Kinetic. A shield (for example) provides 0 EM protection, 25 Thermal protection, 15 Kinetic protection, 4 Mitigation, and 40 Collapse. If the laser strikes the ship with those shields, it will do 0 EM and 2 Thermal damage. The Collapse value drops to 38 after the hit. Once the Collapse value is zero, the shields collapse.

This is somewhat of a skewed example, as the laser described is lower tech than the shields, and it has no weapon/mount modifications. The same laser mounted as a Capital Spinal mount with a High-Energy Focus and Overload does 36 EM/54 Thermal/ 0Kinetic. Of course, it also is power-hungry, heavy and fires every other turn. If this version of the laser struck the shields above, 32 EM/10 Thermal damage is applied to the armor.